BBD Comments:
“One of these kids is doing his own thing, one of these kids ain’t part of the gang…”
The strands of this old Sesame Street song linger in my head as I consider this latest entry in Netti’s ongoing history of Picks.
This film has a great deal of elements that can be recommended:
-it is, as Netti pointed out, beautifully photographed.
-it does bring a Pick to our canon from the historically significant “House of Hammer.”
-it doesn’t have subtitles.
Still, on the heels of ‘Cría Cuervos,’ I am left scratching my head by yet another Netti Pick that failed to fill me with the special something I count on out of Movienight each week. I give ‘The Swimmer’ a lot of shit, but for the most part I have been a staunch supporter of Netti’s unpredictable Selection history. ‘Harold & Maude’ is my favorite of his choices, but I thought ‘My Dinner with Andre’ a risky choice that worked quite well. I have added ‘F for Fake’ to my own collection, but couldn’t help but agree with other Members who grumbled about its propriety as a Selection.
When MOFO was still known as Coolbaugh down here (and still wrote reviews), he used to say of the less then stellar Selections that they were “good for a Tuesday night, but Wednesday is for Slam Dunks.”
Netti and I have been good friends for many years now, and I admire his iconoclastic ways – on Tuesdays. Wednesday night though…
A chill ran down my spine when I saw Netti had yet to make a definitive Pick at 9 PM last night. We all know that I am high strung when it comes to Movienight. I make few apologies about it too. I put my money where my mouth is when it comes to our organization. For over 100 weeks I have swept porches, wired sound equipment, built Web Sites and protected an, at times, tenuous infrastructure to keep this enterprise alive. This is not a cry of “woe is me,” I do it gladly and have reaped tremendous personal awards from the effort. But what keeps me going is the group experience we all get to share.
I know full well that Netti bristles at the idea of a ‘Slam Dunk.’ He has varied and adventurous tastes when it comes to the arts that he consumes. But art that is of personal power and import may not speak to the group as it speaks to you (i.e. ‘The Sea Inside’).
With Netti’s last two at bats he has made me feel that he could care less about the Crew. His picks have been excellent films in their own right, but as Movienight Selections they have been among the least inspired choices we have ever had. More to the point, they have seemed to forget that the Group assembles each week to knock each other’s socks off – not to explore the forgotten gems, or intellectually delicious cinema that Netti gravitates to.
Peter ‘MONA’ Spoerl used to dislike the notion of the Slam Dunk. He categorized Movienight, as originally conceived, as a place for dudes to “watch shit blow up.” I disliked the suggestion, but it isn’t too terribly far from the mark. I’d rephrase it as a place for dudes and she-dudes to provide two hours of entertainment that will linger in the hearts and minds of the audience throughout the week.
It’s not an easy aim to meet on a weekly basis, but with less than 100 movies down, there is still plenty of gold to mine in the Sierra Madre. Bottom line, I mean not to disrespect Netti or his “adventurous” Selections, I just have become impatient with his seeming disregard towards the spirit of Movienight’s founding.
The fear I have is that Netti will respond to this critique by washing his hands of the whole enterprise. That is the last thing I wish. Ben is not only a friend, he has a remarkable mind and an acutely precise artistic sensibility. My hope is that these words will provoke an effort on his behalf to aim away from his apparent tendency to challenge the audience each time he steps to the plate, and instead embrace the effort to please all the people all the time. Perhaps it is a limitation of this Salon that we aim to please instead of challenge - but this is the aim, right or wrong.
Many good things can be said of ‘Night of the Demons.’ Sadly, not one of them is that it was a good pick.
Brandon Comments:
When seeing the antiqued and black-and-white Columbia Pictures logo at the beginning of Wednesday’s Selection, I thought for sure we’d be sitting through some obscure and forgotten Bela Lugosi classic—one in which it is painful to sit through, but you would never mention it out loud because it is Mr. Lugosi. But I, for one, was very surprised to see Netti’s choice was ‘Night of the Demons’ from, I believe, the late 1950s.
Even though some of this film’s actors had never taken a drama course past high school, and a few other costars learned their chops from Peter Graves’ own brand of wooden acting, ‘Night of the Demons’ was an awesome Selection. The special FX were top-notch for a film this old, especially the reverse-smoke that appeared in the forest…which was very similar to the reverse-smoke that appeared on the stairwell in ‘Poltergeist,’ some 30 years later.
This was a great Selection and well worth its stature in our Halloween month of movies. Great job, Netti. Again, you’ve shown me a movie that I’ve never seen before, which, I think, can be said of almost all of your Selections so far. But I am all the better because of them.
Nubs Comments:
On the heels of ‘Cría de Crappo,’ I was really anticipating Netti’s come back with a high hard one straight down the gut to disprove any and all nay-sayers. After all, it was one year ago that Netti was initiated into this admittedly pretentious old boys club. He proved he might be a bit risqué by bringing ‘Rosemary’s Baby,’ but he also proved he wasn’t afraid to show the classics when necessary. Actually, Netti is scared of the classics which was his reasoning for bringing ‘Night of the Demon.’ As he stated, “it got him.”
We were all psyched to be thrilled which lasted maybe a quarter of the way into this antique horror. I must admit I was at first thankful Pat Towne wasn’t there so I could ignore the Mystery Science Theater 3000 jokes shooting off in my head. However, as boredom set in I spent most of the time wondering if I should choose ‘Mystery Science Theater 3000’ for my next Pick. Actually, I may do it so forget I mentioned it. The rest of the time I tried hard to suspend my disbelief that this film had any scary-ability and wondered what Netti was on when it “got him.”
The two most terrifying effects - the monster puppet which appeared all of twice, and the, ooh, house-cat that turned into a slightly larger stuffed animal tiger - were few and far between. The hypnotism was slightly scary but by then my imagination had been tamed. The story of a man trying to avoid his date with death might be interesting if I hadn’t seen it done much better in many of ‘Night of the Demon’s’ successors. The whole Crew was simply asking to be scared in the Back Yard this past October eve, and I doubt anyone had their blood thirst aptly quenched.
I have, for the most part, supported Netti’s picks, granted ‘Cría!’ snuck by while we were off-line. I do appreciate having an artist in the rotation, and enjoy raising the level of our film intellect now and then. However, Netti’s last few Picks have failed to capture even the most fundamental prerequisite of being entertaining. The timing has been worse. I don’t think our Netti needs to be sent back down to the minor leagues but I do hope he gets back on his game soon.
SELECTOR Comments:
I saw ‘Night of the Demon’ at a British horror retrospective. I expected to pass through a footnote; an overlooked work that would have a few spot moments of value. However, my expectations were surpassed. The fact that it was created in 1957 is a count against it for sure. Horror, I think, like comedy depends on current reference and technology. Generally speaking, I don't think anyone is terrified by the demon itself which was a far cry from the CG or in-camera creature effects of today. The idea of a devil cult residing outside of London that was making use of the ancient power of runes and pagan entities to eliminate academic skeptical professors doesn't jump out at modern audiences as particularly scary. In a way though, I think its quintessential horror in that this is the kind of movie that people think of when they think classic junky horror. This is, to be sure, a B-movie. It's budget was next to nothing by the standards of the time, which is not an apology, after all. The audience, when the lights turn down doesn't care how the producer spent or didn't spend the money. The audience wants to be entertained just the same. Which means it was created by those who were not the golden boys of a studio but rather those on the fringes, who were craftsmen in their own right. I think their skills show through.
When I saw this film last year, I left the theatre with a sense that the power structures in this world have another component that the Age of Enlightenment has since denied. Perhaps its because at some level I do allow for the existence of such things that I thought this film was a slow, creeping creeper. I have to say when I asked the temp of the group they all said they wanted to be scared. Unfortunately, I failed in that capacity it seems as I could see that after the screening it didn't scare many, if any others that were present on Wednesday. For me though watching the real, or possibly imagined, demon charging as a locomotive was a chilling moment. The cops who were right there couldn't say one way or the other whether or not he was hit by the train and Joanna Harrington (sweetly played by Peggy Cummins) urges Professor Holden that "Maybe it's better not to know".
It's something that I've learned to say about people's dealings with the CIA, the Mob, and the Occult.
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